Today we are pleased to feature Susan Aylworth’s great book,
Roman’s Holiday
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ROMAN’S HOLIDAY
by
Susan Aylworth
WHAT’S THE BOOK ABOUT?
Four years after Roman Kincaid was catapulted into stardom as a country-western singer and A-list movie star, he is burned out: exhausted by a grueling schedule, drained by the ceaseless demands of producers and managers, weary of meeting the needs of others at the expense of his own. Leaving a sold-out show in Phoenix, he rents a car and drives north and east, landing in the Painted Desert town of Rainbow Rock.
Nearly three years after leaving her old life behind, Lottie Beale is feeding people and baking pies, managing the Kachina Café and tending secrets of her own. When circumstances conspire to give two attractive people some time alone together amid the world-class vistas of the Four Corners, they discover more than either had bargained for.
HOW DOES THE BOOK START?
CHAPTER ONE
Late May
“Ro-man! Ro-man!” A capacity crowd in the Ak-Chin Pavilion chanted his name under the starry desert sky, but Roman Kincaid barely heard it. He stood in the stage wings, gearing up for an encore and wondering when his dream had become a nightmare.
“Okay, guys,” he said to his back-up band via their ear buds. “One encore only. Let’s do ‘Gamble.’ Start with the chorus.” He took two steps toward the stage entrance, swinging his guitar into playing position.
Sam, his manager, caught his elbow. “Are you sure about this? That crowd adores you. You could probably play three encores, sell more CDs—”
“No.” Roman left no room for argument. “One and done. And no backstage stuff, either. I’m outta here.” He took a deep breath, pasted on the same fake, crowd-pleasing smile he’d used in the last half-dozen shows, and jogged back onto the stage to the roar of twenty thousand excited voices. He strummed the intro and launched into the chorus of his first number-one hit:
“Love is such a gamble.
You break a new deck every time.
Sometimes you’re dealt the aces;
Others you draw to nines.
But when I met you, I knew it was true.
A winning hand you seemed.
Now I have the rush of a royal flush.
You are the gamble of my dreams.”
The crowd cheered wildly as he played his way through the music he now sang in his sleep. In fact, he realized as he watched fans taking up the beat and clapping along, that was pretty much what he was doing now. He struggled to suppress a yawn during the guitar interlude as he turned to acknowledge his band.
I spent my early life dreaming of a crowd like this. When did performing start to feel like a chore? He put the thought away. Lately he’d been thinking of times when he’d heard of some celebrity being hospitalized for exhaustion and assumed it was a euphemism for drug rehab. Now he wondered. When was the last time I felt truly rested? The question was an imponderable. Months, at least.
He hit the last chord and took a deep bow, then shouted, “Thank you, Phoenix!” and dashed off-stage.
MEET SOME OF THE CAST
Four years ago, Roman Kincaid was an aspiring singer-songwriter, a country boy from a family farm in Woodburn, Kentucky. A contest in Nashville threw him into international fame as a country-western star and opened new career options as an A-list actor. Now he’s weary, disillusioned and ready for a holiday.Three years ago, Lottie Beale arrived in northeastern Arizona, bought the Kachina Cafe, and moved it to Rainbow Rock. Since then she has been feeding people, baking pies, and carefully guarding every hint about her past. Although she has made friends in the area, few people know anything about where she came from or who she was before.
WHO SAYS WHAT?
For a moment they sat in silence.
Lottie broke in. “So? What now? You know my secret identity and I know yours. Shall we just go our own ways—no harm, no foul?”
Roman considered that. “I’m not sure. I mean, what did Batman and Catwoman do when they discovered each other’s secret identities?”
Lottie wrinkled her nose. “Try to kill each other?”
“Um, you’re right. Bad example. So whaddya think we should do?” A few interesting ideas had already occurred to Roman, but, for the moment at least, he chose to keep those to himself. “Are you thinking of mutually assured destruction? You tell my secret, I tell yours?”
“I don’t know,” Lottie said, “I think we can do better than that.”
WHERE DOES THE STORY TAKE PLACE?
Rainbow Rock is a fictional community in the Four Corners area of northeastern Arizona. It sits on the high Colorado Plateau at the edge of the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, on the border of the Navajo and Hopi Nations, and within an easy drive of the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, Mesa Verde, and a number of other world-class tourist destinations.
TELL US ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Susan Aylworth started her first book when she was nine. “It was called Buff, The Proud Stallion. I wrote eight whole pages.” For her fifth grade career day, she stated her ambition to become “a rich and famous author.” Decades later, she is pleased to have achieved the ‘author’ part of that goal. A former university professor, she enjoys researching backgrounds and careers for her novels. “It’s one way to live many lives all at once.” She lives in northern California with her husband, Roger, and the two spoiled cats they serve. ROMAN’S HOLIDAY is her fourteenth published novel.
“I love travel, great music, and good raspberry jam,” she says. “I especially love hearing from readers.” Reach her at susan.aylworth.author@gmail.com, post on her wall at: www.facebook.com/Susan.Aylworth.Author or follow her @SusanAylworth. “If you enjoy my books, please tell everyone you know: friends, relatives, neighbors, the person who delivers your mail, people you meet in line in the grocery store, everyone!” She welcomes ideas for new books and characters.
WHAT DO READERS THINK?
ROMAN’S HOLIDAY is brand new and not yet available for review, but the beta readers consider this the best of the Rainbow Rock series.Roman’s Holiday is available from Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk